Author: Julia

New Credit Bureau Ratings

Julia

When it comes to having good credit, you already know how important it is to pay your bills on time.  But how you pay your bills — not just whether you pay them — is becoming increasingly important.

In the past two to three years, all three major credit bureaus have added a treasure-trove of new data to their credit reports. Analysts are slicing and dicing “trended data” in hundreds of ways, but probably the biggest change is that lenders now know exactly how you pay your bills: whether you’re a high-risk “revolver” who carries a balance, or a low-risk “transactor” who pays your credit cards in full every month.

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The Emotions of Buying and Selling a House

Julia

Homes come with far more emotional weight than any other investment we make.

A home is a refuge from the world, a place to raise a family and, for some people, an investment they hope will bring them a good chunk of money down the road.

All too often, though, we don’t realize that how we feel about homes blinds us when it comes time to buy or sell. We let our emotions blind us to cold facts about the market or the realities of ownership. Or we prioritize one set of emotional needs over others that are just are strong but may not be evident at first. And ignoring them can lead us to make bad financial decisions that can affect us for decades to come.

Here’s a closer look at some psychological missteps that buyers and sellers often make as they wade into the housing market.

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Homeownership Elusive for Young Adults Without College Degrees

Julia

homeownershipPeople without college degrees are less likely to own homes as they tend to earn much less and aren’t as likely to get help from friends and family.

Student loans are often blamed for the record-low homeownership rate among young adults. But new research suggests that young people without a college diploma face especially big hurdles to owning a home.

College graduates ages 18 to 34 years old without student debt will need just over five years of additional savings to afford a 20% down payment for a starter home, defined as the median home at the bottom third of the market, according to research  by Apartment List, a rental listing website. In comparison, it takes college grads with student loans about 10 years. For those who haven’t graduated from college, the wait to buy a home swells to nearly 15.5 years. Read more →

Gardening Therapy

Julia


Being around greenery may help you cope better with the stress of everyday life or even a trauma or illness.

The latest research on the use of gardens and gardening as therapy has been so positive that a new “branch” of therapy has emerged. “Horticultural therapy” involves a trained therapist who works with people on gardening-related activities tied to treatment goals and improved quality of life.

Whether you tend to your own garden or greenhouse, or take advantage of a horticultural therapist, you can reap the benefits of gardening health, which may help:

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Want to “Play House?”

Julia

Tyson and Tyson and Audrey Leavitt build playhouses. And not just your typical nailed-to-a-tree backyard boards. Real playhouses. Fantastical playhouses. Charmed Playhouses, as their business name suggests.

They’re each partial to certain projects–Audrey loves the fairytale cottages (“They’re exactly what I would have loved to play in as a child!”) and Tyson gets nostalgic about the pirate ship playhouses.

Then Tyson, with help from family and crew members, is in charge of actually building the structures. Audrey is in charge of decorating the interiors. “It’s fun to find tiny treasures to fit our theme, that the kids will love,” she said.

LDS Living Magazine

Can Handwriting Make You Smarter?

Julia

TakingNotes

Laptops and organizer apps make pen and paper seem antique, but handwriting appears to focus classroom attention and boost learning in a way that typing notes on a keyboard does not, new studies suggest.

Students who took handwritten notes generally outperformed students who typed their notes via computer, researchers at Princeton University and the University of California at Los Angeles found. Compared with those who type their notes, people who write them out in longhand appear to learn better, retain information longer, and more readily grasp new ideas, according to experiments by other researchers who also compared note-taking techniques.

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